The Trustworthiness of Beards

Published March 31, 2015 By
Mark A. Rayner

Finally, a new advance in the Beard Sciences! Here at the Institute of the Hirsute, we applaud this initiative.

This exhaustive study of trustworthiness, vis-a-vis a gentlemen’s hair foliage, will help generations better understand who they’re dealing with. (Click the image on the left to see the full spectrum of beard/trustworthiness.)

I would like to note one area where this study has made, what I believe, to be an error. Of course, I’m talking about the Stalin’s Moustache paradigm. Please note the shape of Stalin’s moustache, and then map it on the trustworthiness scale. As you can see, it is clearly falling somewhere between the Full Moustache (aka The Wilfred Brimley) and the Cop Moustache (aka The Burt Reynolds, aka, The Fireman), which both fall into the Mildly Trustworthy category. I note a very slight, almost impossible to detect upturning of Stalin’s moustache, which may lead one to place it slightly towards the Handlebar (Questionable), and would like to propose that the Stalin have it’s own place in the scale. Based on the purges, his ruthlessness, and general history, somewhere between Dangerous and Disastrous.

In all other regards, though, this new Chin Covering Spectrum is an extremely important tool for those of us in the Beard Sciences.